August 24, 2012

This message is not new here: Our brains are changing all the time. We can be in charge of those changes, i.e., change our brains on purpose, or let life change our brains willy nilly. Who wants a willy nilly, haphazard, accidental brain?

Warning: reading this article will change your brain. But so will your next phone call, your next drive home, your next worry or wish.

Not so long ago, scientists believed that by the time people were young adults, their brains were fixed, static, hard-wired. Now we know that quite the opposite is true. Every experience shifts, shapes and sculpts the brain. The synapses (connections) between the neurons (brain cells) realign as we go about our daily life.

If we decide to take control of our thinking, we have choices about that realignment. If we are passive or indifferent to our thoughts, life steps into the void and molds our brain outside our awareness.

More about our ability to change our brains for the better from the news release:

John D. E. Gabrieli, a professor of cognitive neuroscience at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who was not involved in the research, noted that researchers in the past have shown anatomical changes in the brain from simpler tasks, such as juggling or playing a musical instrument, but not for tasks as complex and abstract as thinking or reasoning, which involve many areas of the brain.

“I think this is an exciting discovery,” he said. “It shows, with rigorous analysis, that brain pathways important for thinking and reasoning remain plastic in adulthood, and that intensive, real-life educational experience that trains reasoning also alters the brain pathways that support reasoning ability.”

Make you want to pay attention to how you're using your brain? And help your clients to pay the same attention? That's all it takes to be an attention choreographer, one of the best roles you can play in conflict resolution.

At least, that's what I think. And I think about it everyday. Because of that frequency, my brain often reinforces the value and skill of attention choreography. Want to learn more? Come to one of my attention choreography seminars. Or read past posts (e.g., these) in this blog. Or, best of all, do both!

August 20, 2012

One of the books I recently read that got me thinking and thinking (and thinking) is Pathological Altruism. Two chapters particularly grabbed my attention and thought: "Self-Addiction and Self-Righteousness" by David Brin, and "Pathological Certitude" by Robert A. Burton*. As I watch Twitter, Facebook, and the media, I have, since reading these chapters, thought everyday about the good feelings associated with certitude.

Can we unswervingly hold to our point of view not so much because of the truth of our position but because we are addicted to the feeling of indignation or self-righteousness? Brin thinks that kind of addiction is possible.

I wonder: Is it possible to mediate when addiction to indignation is present in one or more of the parties?

What does Brin mean by addiction to indignation or self-righteousness? From the introduction to his chapter:

If a mental state causes pleasurable reinforcement, there will be a tendency to return to it. Meditation, adoration, gambling, rage, and indignation might all, at times, be "mental addictions."

Self-righteousness and indignation may sometimes be as much about chemical need as valid concerns about unfair actions. Among other outcomes, this may cause "pathologically altruistic" behavior.

Now, let me ask a couple of questions . . .

As you look back, can you think of just one or two parties to disputes in which you have been involved that seemed to crave indignation? Have you ever been indignant at least partly because it felt so good? Perhaps we all have succumbed to that feeling? Have you ever connected the notion of addiction with indignation?

August 19, 2012

This month, I traveled to California because of a serious health matter of a close family member. One of the benefits of the trip was much time to read. I could not get online except when at Starbuck's so had more than the typical amount of time with nothing distracting or calling to me besides books!

In fact, I have been reading so many good books that I wanted to list them in case some of you may enjoy an item or two from my recently-read list. Here they are (I have included a couple from earlier this year, too):

In his new book on memory, psychologist and novelist Charles Fernyhough provides an outstanding overview of how this dynamic understanding can be applied to many different facets of memory. He travels to Sydney to find locations he wrote about in his first novel, The Auctioneer, and shows how his subsequent imaginings of these places have irrevocably overwhelmed what he actually saw. He also uses landscapes to bring memories and people back to life, re-enacting walks he took with his late father, and movingly describing the ways that we keep the dead alive, for ourselves and for those around us, by telling our memories, our stories. He shows how we use memories to connect ourselves to the past but also to tell stories to make the past what we want it to be.

Fernyhough's skills as a writer are evident both in the beautiful prose and in the way he uses literature to illustrate his argument. As he points out, since memories are the stories we tell, we can learn much about memory from the words of writers. He draws on both science and art to marvellous effect in his exploration of why early memories are so often filled with sunlight. ...